Soundcard not detected

English Hardware
1

Hi guys, I need your expertise;

My sound stopped working! (after a fresh install, explained below)

I just installed the latest release of openSuse. Right after installing, I ran the updates tool and got all recommended updates. All fine.

I then installed my ATI catalyst drivers. Rebooted a couple of times. All fine.

Everything was working 100% (including sound), I then rebooted, now something is wrong.

Now my sound is not working, I right-click the speaker icon in the taskbar, and to my surprise my soundcard is not listed like it was just before. It used to show up as an X-fi card, which was correct.

In Yast, I go to sound, and in the hardware section, there is nothing there, my soundcard is not listed.

I tried to add a soundcard in Yast, (creative xfi) but it wont install, I get some IRQ error.

I’m all out of ideas. I’m a new to using linux, but I know my way around the console.

Please help! I have trolled through the internet for hours to no avail.

edit: my soundcard is a X-Fi Xtremegamer.

Many thanks.

2

Now that I think about it:

The ONLY thing that I changed/configured was setting my inittab to init3, so that I can boot into console first, then startx manually.

Could this be the problem?

Cheers.

*** EDIT: well, it turns out that was it. I switched my inittab to init5, and now my sound works.

Now, how can I get my sound to work when I boot to console using init3?

3

YaST has not been updated to handle an X-fi, where support is fairly recent to Linux. If you are using openSUSE-11.2, then go to /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf and remove that file. Then reboot and test your sound.

Please pay careful attention to your mixer settings (ie master, pcm, speaker (where appropriate) volumes moved up).

4

oldcpu:

Do I remove that file, after I have booted in init3 (when my sound is not working)?

Where do I find the mixer?

I looked in Yast>sound, and in the hardware settings my card is not listed. But when I right click my speaker icon in the taskbar, under hardware, my card is listed.

To recap:
When I boot in init3 have no sound (card not detected in yast or speaket icon) –

When I boot in init 5, my sound works and my card is listed in the speaker icon properties (but not in yast>sound>hardware)

Cheers!

edit: typo

5

Do you need sound working in run level 3 ?

KDE users use the program “kmix”. Gnome users typically use the program “alsamixer” or “amixer” (or both).

YaST does not support Xfi, so do not look there!

Well if it works in Run Level 5, then if it were me, I would not mess with things.

6

Yeah I understand you oldcpu, I should just leave it, now that my sound works eh.

The only reason I like run level 3, is that I get to boot into console. I can then startx myself manually.

Cheers!

7

Note if you start X via “startx” some of your session permissions (such as under k3b for burning a CD/DVD) may not be correct. … I have not encountered that myself, but it is what I have read on other threads on this forum.

8

I had the same exact problem with a totally different distro, Every time I got a kernel update my creative x-fi Xtremegamer would stop working. The fix for me was to reinstall the creative linux driver after every kernel update.